I guess the real question is: what am I going to see at Uepi that I won't see during 12-days on the Bilikiki?
Eric and all--some notes on differences between our stay on liveaboard (Spirit of Solomons, sistership to the Bilikiki) and our stay on Uepi:
1)Social/sociological aspect: Although the diving was great, we (Carolyn and I) found the opportunities to interact or get much of a sense of the people of the Solomons were pretty limited on the liveaboard. It would be going too far to say that we might as well have been a cruise ship, but we had a sense of significant separation from anything resembling the actual daily life of the Solomons. This aspect may be exacerbated in the Solomons (compared to a liveaboard in say, Belize) due to the very simplicity of most Solomon Islander’s material lives. This sense of separation was somewhat less true of our stay in Uepi. It is still a resort, but it is staffed by people from one local village, and some sense of the pace of Solomons life gets through.
2) Marine biology: I'm no expert, but at Uepi you are in the same region that the Bilikiki goes to for a couple of days of the 12 day itinerary. What you'll see underwater at Uepi won't be radically different. However, what I found interesting was getting the sense of how dive sites relate to one particular island. In other words, with the liveaboard, sometimes I lost much of a sense of where I was-- the ship would travel quite a bit from site to site to give us the best diving they could. Those of us there for the first time pretty much lost sense of where we were and how that related to the last place we'd been. On the island (Uepi), it was interesting to get a sense of how the reef on the Pacific side was, what the diving in the channel was like, and then how also the diving on the lagoon side was. Some dives, we could literally dive the point on the Pacific side, drift up to coral gardens in the channel on the incoming tide, and then snorkel back to the mid-channel dive shop. By the end of the week we began to get a sense of the underwater topography surrounding the island.
That being said, when we were at Uepi, we saw many more sharks and bigger schools of barracuda. I'm not sure if those were random temporary local conditions.
3) Heat- this may sound trivial and overly obvious, but when we were there, (October) the trades were intermittent at best and by our standards it was pretty hot. Maybe we're spoiled by the more temperate weather in the San Francisco Bay Area. But the heat didn't bother us on the liveaboard, I think because we usually had some sort of ocean breeze. On Uepi we definitely noticed the heat. This may be a personal reaction on our part, but it's worth noting that you'll be very close to the equator and that you're going in August. I'm not sure what the weather's like then, but it's worth taking note.
4) Expense-- You note $250 a day for 3 dives. Garden Island in Fiji is maybe an unfair comparison, since it is known as good value for the money, but if that's a standard, I think Garden Island is about $150 a day for 2 dives, or perhaps $185-ish with 3 dives a day(?). What may bug some people is that Uepi is still rather rustic-- the little cabins were more like bungalows, there is no AC (there are fans), there's no hot water, it is a fairly "buggy" environment. There are a lot of other nice touches-- the staff is great, and the food is really outstanding-- but I can still imagine some guests wondering about the cost versus some aspects of the accommodations. It's not a luxury resort, but it still costs. I assume the managers would say the costs are related to the isolated location. A supply ship stops at the island once a month. Otherwise the food and supplies are obtained locally. A lot of labor is present. I would assume the managers would say the costs are a combination of high-costs for shipped items and a lot of labor used for local items. Nevertheless, it's not a bargain-type place.
5) "Personal space"-- Sorry to sound so California, but I'm not sure quite how to classify this item. And this could be a positive or negative, depending on one's own subjective personal reaction. But-- if the owners (Grant and Jill) are going to be on-island and managing the place when you are there, it is worth noting. Grant and Jill manage the place with a strong personal touch- they are there for almost every meal (i.e. breakfast and dinner-- lunch is served in the bungalows) and dine with the guests. Since there were few guests when we where there, a couple of nights and mornings there was only them and us. We had some long interesting conversations. This is quite different from for example Garden Island. Grant and Jill both grew up on fairly isolated family farms in Australia. Sometimes staying at Uepi felt more like one of those "farm-stay" programs where you go stay with a farm family on their farm and see what farm life is like. In other words, unlike many dive resorts, their personal presence can be a major factor, especially in a weeklong stay. If you like them, that's fine. If on the other hand you mostly want to be left alone—I guess you could let them know that and they’d accommodate you. Also, if you're traveling there by yourself-- this whole aspect becomes that much more important. There is literally nothing on the island but this resort, and there were relatively few other guests during a half of our one-week stay. That might impact the experience for a solo traveller. Depending on one’s perspective, I guess you could feel either a little out of it; or alternatively, like you’d died and gone to dive-heaven with a whole island at your disposal. In any event, when we were there, the atmosphere felt more like a friendly B&B, where the guests and the hosts get to know each other, talk over world events, etc. That may not be what some people are looking for.
6) Visits for less than a week-- When we were there, most of the other guests were Australian expats who lived in Honiara (capital of Solomons) and who came to Uepi for 3 or 4 days. I think planes fly in to Sege every few days or so. It seems like it would be possible to lessen the gamble of going there (and the cost) by visiting for 3-4 days. We enjoyed the week, but there are other options.
Bottom line:
The decision factor for us was that we didn't want to travel all the way to the Solomon Islands and only experience life on a liveaboard there. We wanted to keep diving but also get a little more flavor of the country. That left us (as far as we knew) with a choice between Uepi and Ghizo for land-based diving in the Solomons. (We weren't aware of the Tulagi operation at the time). I've never been to Ghizo so can't comment-- but that's what lead us to Uepi. We’re glad we went.
I'm waiting to hear back from Uepi with final details. I can't wait to go!
